Student Applications

The UT String Project is currently accepting students into the lottery system for the 2017-2018 school year. To enter, please click here and fill out all requested information. Students chosen through the lottery system will be notified by the end of June 2017. If you are interested in Saturday-Only Status (see below), please contact the office directly.

Program Eligibility

The University of Texas String Project enrolls students either in our Preschool Program (for students who enter at age 4 and 5) or the regular program (other students); eligibility is based solely on age, even if your child has gotten an early start to school. All students in the Preschool Program will be beginners. Applicants for our regular (school-aged) program may be either potential beginners or players with previous experience.

Full Time vs. Saturday-Only Status

Most UT String Project students are full-time students, taking both Saturday classes and private lessons with our faculty. We also enroll students with Saturday-only status when they already have a private lesson teacher who is not on our faculty. You will have the opportunity on your application to specify which status you expect to enroll for, but this can be changed later. All String Project students, including Saturday-only students, must take private lessons either from our faculty or from an outside teacher.

Waiting and Referral Lists

The String Project currently maintains a waiting list of over 700 students, which in some cases represents several years’ wait time. For this reason, we maintain a Referral List of teachers in the Austin area (available upon request from the office) to facilitate your starting your child’s musical education as quickly as possible. This list is hardly an exhaustive list of teachers in the Austin area, and inclusion on the list does not constitute the String Project’s endorsement; rather, the list is a tool to help parents start looking. Teachers, if you would like to be included on the referral list, please contact us.

With such an extensive waiting list, applying early can obviously be advantageous. However, we will ignore applications listing a birthdate more than nine months in the future.

Acceptance of students into the program is based primarily on the program’s vacancies and on order of application. For more information, see our policies page. Prospective beginners on violin and cello consistently represent our longest lines; consider applying for viola or bass, or being open to a variety of instruments. Also consider beginning your child’s string education with a private teacher as soon as possible rather than waiting for a position in our program. An early start is nearly always beneficial, and also may help your child fill an advanced opening in our program before his or her turn as a beginner would otherwise occur.

It is vital that you keep your information up to date. We have too many applicants to spend time tracking down families on our waiting list who have let their contact information become out of date. Please keep us informed of any changes, or you may miss crucial information. Also, please if you start a string instrument after applying so that we can note this on our waiting list.